Report 2009-103 Recommendations and Responses in 2014-041

Report 2009-103: Departments of Health Care Services and Public Health: Their Actions Reveal Flaws in the State's Oversight of the California Constitution's Implied Civil Service Mandate and in the Departments' Contracting for Information Technology Services

Department

Number of Years Reported As Not Fully Implemented

Total Recommendations to Department

Not Implemented After One Year

Not Implemented as of 2013-041 Response

Not Implemented as of Most Recent Response

Department of Health Care Services

5

11

3

2

2

Recommendation To: Health Care Services, Department of

To comply with requirements in the State Administrative Manual, Health Care Services should refrain from funding permanent full-time employees with the State's funding mechanism for temporary-help positions.

Response

DHCS has taken, and will continue to take, proactive steps to identify positions for those individuals in the temporary help blanket that requires a permanent position.

DHCS will endeavor to limit use of the temp help blanket to those instances which meet the definition in the SAM, Ch. 6500, Sect 6518. In addition, Budget Letter 12-03: Adjust Budget Display to Reflect Actual Expenditures and Eliminate Salary Savings issued March 12, 2012 grants additional flexibility to use blanket authority to fill positions beyond approved position authority on a temporary basis for operational needs. Contrary to the BSA recommendation, it is not inappropriate to place permanent fulltime employees in the temp help blanket. There are a variety of instances and specifically provided for in SAM 6518 and Budget Letter 12-03 to place perm full-time employees in the temp help blanket and as such, DHCS reserves the right to continue as needed.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Will Not Implement

Response Date: October 2013

Recommendation To: Health Care Services, Department of

To readily identify active IT and other contracts, Health Care Services should either revise its existing contract database or develop and implement a new contract database.

Response

DHCS current contract database sufficiently meets the department's needs. As stated in the one-year status report, based on the results of DHCS' business requirements assessment and the current low volume of contracts it is not economically feasible to create a new database. In addition, Budget Letter 08-05 placed a moratorium on the development and enhancement of information technology systems that duplicate functionality of the Financial Information Systems for California (FI$Cal). The FI$Cal system will encompass procurement issues including contracts, requisitions, and purchase orders. It will be a comprehensive information exchange system that will be used to generate, administer, and manage all contracts, purchases, and grant agreements from initiation through final payment. In the interim DHCS' Purchasing Unit will add a "Term Date" column to the Excel spreadsheet that records all Information Technology (IT) purchase requisitions that result in a purchase order. Start and end dates will be logged for those purchases that include or involve an IT service. Term information will be recorded for all IT services procured on or after July 1, 2010. Contract Management Unit staff will continue to record IT service transactions obtained via a Standard Agreement into DHCS' existing service contract system.